It's true, those repairdudes are shitty, uncaring people and they could've at least improved their safety measures after the first accident. They probably didn't do it right in the first place.
But...
those people crashing, they're shitty drivers. That's a 40 miles per hour speed limit on the road, right? That's 64 kilometers per hour. Look where people slide off the road. Look how far away they are from that truck. That's at least 50 meters. It's enough space to reduce your car's speed on a slippery road to make it safe to break for a full stop. But these people are slipping off the road before they're even close enough throw one of those plastic cones at the Comcast douchebags if they had one.
Again, the repairdudes are assholes but they're not causing the accidents, it's shitty driving. The drivers are breaking too hard and too soon on a slippery road to avoid a truck that's too far away to crash into.
Just take your foot of the gas, use your breaks just to reduce speed. If you're not driving an automatic, shift down a gear to further reduce speed when you're slowed down a bit. Once you're slow enough, like maybe 30 kmph or less, you start breaking for a full stop.
Don't stomp on your break 100 meters away from the obstacle. If you start sliding, release the break to regain control of the car, to get out of the slide.
Also, why isn't the actual scene of the accident secured? Why doesn't the guy who slipped off the road secure his own damn car? I don't know about the US but over here I'm required by law to have a warning sign in my car that I have to place 100 m down the road. That would probably placed before the hilltop, where people are unable to see the repairtruck. They would be warned that something's wrong down the road.
The idiot filming puts out more cones (or whatever those things are supposed to be) but her places them by the truck instead of securing his own crashsite. Instead of warning people coming up the hill, he berates the repair-assholes and shoots video of more shitty drivers crashing, doing nothing to prevent a bigger crashsite. Unless he's the Dovahkiin, his yelling won't stop the cars from slipping off the road.
That video is a total douchebagapalooza and their bandleader is the one filming.

I'm basically done with defending WikiLeaks as well, after the shit they pulled with the leaks of Turkish data. Completely irresponsible, that one.

However, WikiLeaks doesn't need credibility -- the data does. And the data they published vis-á-vis Clinton/Podesta/DNC is, as of now, solid. There was one fake document, but that was shown to have been injected by someone other than WL.

"Strong bias" -- oh, I do have a strong bias. Plural, as in biases, actually. For instance, I'm disinclined to take anything the US intelligence agencies say at face value, given how they manufactured more than one casus belli. I don't put much weight into (un-)official statements in general, but especially since all the misinformation they spread about issues like the coup in Honduras or the actions of Nazi militias in Ukraine.

In this particular case, however, my argument is much simpler: Occam's razor seems much more likely than malicious intent. Propaganda outlets on both sides are run by people. Maybe the propaganda outlet Sputnik intentionally twisted the content of email, or maybe they just fucked up, like people are wont to do. Maybe someone intentionally fed Trump this bad info, maybe his people are just as incompetent as he is.

There are too many parts in this that include people who have more than once proven themselves to be utterly incompetent, or in complete ignorance of even the concept of truth. I don't think Trump gives a shit about truth or facts, he strikes me as the typical blowhard who spouts whatever shit comes to mind, and spins stories on the fly like a 4-year-old when caught red-handing.

No need for a conspiracy there, with all this incompetence, naiveté and plain disregard for facts.

So when they keep on pushing the Russian angle in this, it just seems like a desperate attempt to conjure up the old unifying enemy. Why worry about Russian propaganda when there's plenty on FOX and MSNBC/CNN? Why worry about Russian hackers when you accept the unbelievably insecure method of eletronic votes, partly without paper trails, and completely controlled by private companies?

It's just very strange to an outsider like me to see them focus on perceived external influences when the internals are a complete clusterfuck. And this presidential election is the biggest clusterfuck I've seen in 30 years, which doesn't mean much, admittedly.

That said, we can't just be looking at it from the outside with binoculars, not when people are back to full-blown Cold War rhetoric. When the ruling class in the US and/or the ruling class in Russia start their pissing contests and other forms of grandstanding, it's usually brown people who pay the price, like they have been in Syria for the last couple of years. And Libya. And Yemen. And Somalia. And Afghanistan, And Iraq. And Pakistan.

Personally, all the rhetoric about "standing up to Russian aggression" and similar nonsense makes me keenly aware that the bridge just outside my hometown was constructed with a shaft to place explosives in, to slow down advancing Soviet troops... so yes, I would very much like to bitch-slap all these warmongerers on both sides, but particularly the ones in the US since they are currently the ones racking up the highest death toll.

Edit: I should have made it clearer. Yes, WL is absolutely biased against Clinton and they do seem to act in support of Trump. Assange in particular. Which bums me out to no end, since I actually met the guy in person when they presented WL at the 26C3.

Glen Ford: Apocalypse Hillary

"The Trump campaign is in its death throes, and Hillary cannot be stopped. But she can be slowed down in her rush to war. Those “progressives” that were resigned to cast their vote for Hillary out of fear of Trump have no reason to tremble at the prospect of an orange presidency. Rather, they should be terrified of Hillary Clinton getting the kind of landslide that she will interpret as a mandate for war with Russia – a war in defense of al-Qaida in Syria."

As far a president moral fiber We can go back to Kennedy and Clinton both banning chicks left and right. SEX is SEX . I'm sure Bush would have like some babes backing up on him but don't think it happened. Reagan and Romney seemed to carry a higher moral fiber with regards to women and random sex.

If I would put Christian values above the candidates this election then non would get my vote. That would be a bad choice. One is clearly more destructive for America than the other.

Clinton is clearly wrong choice for leadership. Since 50% ish seem to think otherwise I have not choice but to try to block her by voting Trump. Will I hold my noise and bull the leaver You bet. Slowing down Americans moral decline ( as apposed to Clinton) is a fair reason to vote for Trump. Getting jobs creation going is a reason for a Trump vote.


If this was 30 years ago and Trump ( Bush Clinton) was running , do you think the media would have put it out? not a chance in hell? No network president would allow it.

This country has lowered it moral standard to a new low . And that is why this video was put out.

If following the always in the middle rule, this should follow, but if you don't want to be a perfect driver, at least when merging, follow what is called the "zipper rule".

The zipper rule looks like it sounds: Allow one person to merge in front of you and one person behind you, like a zipper. If you're merging with one car in front of you and one car behind, allow one car already on the freeway to pass between you and the car merging in front of you. The person behind you should do the same for you and any car behind them.

This is something both cars on the freeway and cars merging onto it have to agree to though, as one asshole spoils it. Of course, if someone is tooooo slow (another problem) the zipper rule doesn't work perfectly either.

But the spirit of the zipper rule remains, despite how it is modified. If someone hogs the road, tailgating the car I should be merging behind, I simply follow the zipper rule after that asshat driver. If I were to fight over my true zipper position, I'd cause an even bigger problem than was already present -- and I gain.. what? One car's distance. That's nothing.

Not even 30 cars distance means a damn (a couple seconds?), so there's zero reasons to constantly weave in and out of a congested road, because you risk your vehicle for mere seconds. A terrible bet to make given the odds, no matter how skilled you are, because the lanes slow down at random intervals based on the random number of idiots weaving through traffic causing phantom intersections. Meanwhile, the lane you weaved out of has cleared and the guy being patient passes you by. Just fucking stay in your goddamn lane until you don't need to be there.

I learned this over time, after deciding to be patient and observe the distance traveled by impatient drivers compared to myself staying in one lane. I find that I will often pass the impatient driver by because they're making so many choices and fewer lane choices are ever more optimal than simply waiting for your lane to clear up, so rather than slowly gaining ground, they make a couple gains and then lane change into a briefly cleared lane that then halt once they zoom up to tailgate the person who has no more distance to travel. If I don't end up passing these impatient lane changers, the minimal distance they gained is only seconds, as when they reach their off ramp, they will be waiting idly by, as I catch up and pass them. If they had simply stayed in the same lane the entire way, they often would have arrived at the same time as if they hadn't changed lanes at all.

I'm just baffled that anyone would take the time to try to decipher anything Palin said. I find her word salads to be like a car wreck. I'll slow down enough to try to get a glimpse of what is going on, but I'm not going to pull over and try to figure out who caused it.

That would be AWESOME if he was. But in actuality---because of the tail rotor still spinning and then how the main rotor blades droop as they slow down (at just about the right height-with no visual profile end o- to chop someone driving a semi or a bus in half)---the entire helicopter is a rotating engine of death until everything comes to a halt...
Thus, the duck and run of people getting out from a chopper. And not duck and run towards the tail rotor specifically.

I'm largely with @newtboy on this one.

Charles Kinsey provides an excellent and concrete example of someone who thought that there was zero chance that what he was doing would lead to getting shot. He did absolutely nothing wrong, and from what I/we can tell actually handled everything as well as anyone could reasonably hope for. If I was in that situation, I guarantee I wouldn't have had the presence of mind to lay down on my back with my hands straight up and calmly explain what was going on.

So, as a white person who has never been in a situation like that, all I can do is try to put myself in the shoes of how a black person would see this. Here's a guy who acted perfectly -- a standard that I can't imagine holding myself to -- and he still got shot. And the police response is (so far) boilerplate utter bullshit.

I can't really imagine what it would be like to be black in the US, and have direct experiences with this sort of thing (even less extreme examples like profiling traffic stops) on top of WAY too frequent reports of this stuff happening. But I can try, and all I can say is that it seems terrifying.

Push people far enough, and they start pushing back. I think that's what @newtboy is saying. I absolutely do NOT condone violence against police, or painting them with a broad brush and claiming they are ALL racist ... but at some point, I can absolutely understand that there is going to be blowback for this shit that has gone on way too often for way too long.

In order to slow down / prevent / stop that blowback, police need to be working their asses off to change that image. The "blue line" mentality of protecting their own even when they make (massive) mistakes has got to go. Yeah, it is a hard job. Yeah, it means that police should be held to a higher standard of conduct than average Joe citizens. Yeah, it means that police need to accept that they face a certain amount of danger and risk -- danger that will make it hard to be calm, cool, and collected. But that's the job. Protect and serve the people, not themselves or the police department.

Until all the good cops (and there are lots of them, including some friends of mine) get together and make it clear that the actions of these bad cops are utterly unacceptable, things will continue to get worse.

OK you made me re-watch this. At first I thought the lady had just made a mistake and missed a bike that came up beside her. The camera angle (FOV) makes it difficult to judge distances and directions very well.

On closer inspection she actually appears to come from behind and overtake in the right lane which is ending, and then merges into the exact spot where the bike is, and then does not react to the horn and keeps coming. That makes it really awkward for the biker to try to avoid her (speed up? slow down?), because its hard to predict what she is going to do next. So I understand the indignation a bit better and am willing to cheer the cop in this case, he looked very alert and professional (fake? just kidding).

I do wish people would use their mirrors, merge more safely (and faster) and use signals, and line-up properly when turning left, and u-turn safer and look before they open doors - any of those can easily kill a biker unintentionally. However I would be very reluctant to call the cops in these cases if I thought it was a mistake someone made and was lucky to get away with without major incident. Most of the time people learn from these close calls. This lady seemed to be talking back and confident in her ways.

Well, I did ask you to correct my observation if it was indeed wrong.

Tell me why he couldn't slow down though? Couldn't he have slowed down? Let her pass? Move to the left to protect his exposed leg and then slowed down?

Like I said, I'm not a motorcycle rider. In a car, I would have slowed down and inched left as I did so. Is that not an option on a motorcycle? At those relatively slow speeds they were driving?

I just watched it again, and I gotta say -- it sure looks to me like he could have slowed down to protect himself. AND I see this with the eyes of a car driver, not a motorcycle driver. I could be wrong.

Any motorcycle drivers out there who can chime in and correct me?

I disagree that it is victim-blaming.

He is honking his horn and yelling and neither speeding up nor slowing down in the face of a car coming for him.

Drive defensively. So every time they run that PSA, that is victim blaming?

She was totally in the wrong. You saw I said that right?

And he didn't drive defensively.

As a car driver (encased in a metal box), I don't argue with someone who is coming right for me. I try to get the heck out of the way (and curse at them the entire way).

Now, maybe I am missing something -- you can correct me if I am wrong about my observations. I"m not a motorcycle driver. Maybe he couldn't have slowed down, sped up, or done some other maneuver. Looked to me like he could have.

Please do correct me if my observations are incorrect.

(And might I inquire as to why in particular it is odd to see me "victim blame"? Not that I think I am?)

Am I the only one who wonders why he so aggressively held onto the lane when she clearly wasn't acknowledging his existence?

He's on a frigging motorcycle. Get out of her way, stay out of her way.

Had he been hurt in this particular instance, I think it would have been 100% his fault. He saw her. Saw her coming. And neither sped up nor slowed down to avoid potential physical harm to himself.

You can be 100% right while being 100% wrong sometimes.

*promote

I'd love to see those flashes slowed down even more. What happens between no burst and burst?

Woah, woah, you're way overstating it. The tech is nowhere near ready for full hands-off driving in non-ideal driving scenarios. For basic navigation Google relies on maps and GPS, but the crux of autonomous navigation is machine learning algorithms. Through many hours of data logged driving, the algorithm will associate more and more accurately certain sensor inputs to certain hazards via equation selection and coefficients. The assumption is that at some point the algorithm would be able to accurately and reliably identify and react to pedestrians, pot holes, construction areas, temporary traffic lights police stops among an almost endless litany of possible hazards.

They're nowhere near there though and there's simply no guarantee that it will ever be sufficiently reliable to be truly hands-off. As mentioned, the algorithm is just an equation with certain coefficients. Our brains don't work that way when we drive. An algorithm may never have the necessary complexity or flexibility to capture the possibility of novel and unexpected events in all driving scenarios. The numbers Google quotes on reliability from its test driving are on well mapped, simple to navigate roads like highways with few of these types of challenges but real life is not like that. In practice, the algorithm may be safer than humans for something like 99% of scenarios (which I agree could in itself make driving safer) but those exceptional 1% of scenarios that our brains are uniquely able to process will still require us to be ready to take over.

As for Tesla, all it has is basically auto-cruise, auto-steer and lane changing on request. The first two is just the car keeping in lane based on lane marker input from sensors, and slowing down & speeding up based on the car follow length you give it. The most advanced part of it is the changing lanes if you indicate it to, which will effectively avoid other cars and merge. It doesn't navigate, it's basically just for highways, and even on those it won't make your exit for you (and apparently will sometimes dive into exits you didn't want based on lane marker confusion from what I've read). So basically this is either staged or this guy is an idiot.

I think I've figured it out - they're trying to power the world with green energy by putting copper coil onto Gene Roddenberry's casket and each time it slows down they make another one of these Star Trek movies?

This is Star Trek via name only. I'm disgusted.